Her Cruel Prank, His Deadly Vengeance

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On my wedding day, my fiance asked me at the last minute to go to the front desk for the rings.

By the time I came back, doctors in white coats were carrying my mother into an ambulance, her whole body soaked in blood.

I dropped the rings and ran.

That was how I learned she'd fallen down the stairs. They tried to save her. It wasn't enough.

The wedding was called off. I cried through the whole night.

After the funeral, I went to find my fiance. Outside the private room, I heard the people inside talking. "Barnaby Delgado, so Cedric Gilbert's mother died because of a prank you pulled? What actually happened?"

"I just messed with her a little. Told her Cedric had been in a car accident. She went tearing out of there, and next thing you know she'd fallen down the stairs and gone brain-dead."

"How did you even come up with a prank like that!"

"Leah Harding knew about it too. To help me pull it off, she made a point of sending Cedric to fetch the rings, and then I went and scared his mother."

Leah sighed. "No one is ever to bring this up again. Whatever I owe him, I'll pay it back!"

Standing outside the door, I felt the blood freeze in my veins, my eyes going wide in disbelief.

So my mother's death wasn't an accident. Barnaby's prank had killed her.

And the woman who loved me had been part of it, willing to bury his secret for him.

With that much hate between us, there was no way I could ever want her again.

...

"Okay, I know I was wrong! I'll never pull a prank like that again."

Barnaby said the words, but the smugness on his face was impossible to hide.

I thought his friends would call him out for what he'd done. Instead they laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Come on, man! You're a certified prank master."

"Don't take it so hard. It's not like it was all your fault."

"How were you supposed to know the old bag had no brains? You made one little joke and she goes rushing out without a second thought."

"Right! Maybe her time was just up. She was fated to die at her son's wedding."

Barnaby clapped his hands together and made a face like they finally got it.

"See, see, Leah, you hear that? It really isn't my fault!"

"Not my problem the old woman had no sense! I joke around with you guys all the time too, don't I?"

"Has anyone ever been scared to death by one of my jokes? No, right!"

The people across from him nodded, laughing, all agreeing that my mother was simply fated to die.

I clenched my fists so hard they ached, the rage in my chest refusing to fade.

And Leah, far from cursing Barnaby out, shook her head and let out a helpless, doting little laugh.

Then someone suddenly called out, "Damn! You've got a fresh hickey on your neck."

"Ha, come on, tell us. What were you up to last night?"

Leah's best friend leaned in with a grin, interrogating him about the mark on his neck.

Barnaby just smiled, like he'd pulled off something glorious.

"Take a guess."

They looked at each other, and once they read the pride on his face, the whole room erupted.

"No way, that hickey's your doing?"

"Do you even have to ask? Cedric's been busy handling his mother's funeral this whole time. Where's he going to find the time or the mood to sleep with Leah?"

"So poor lonely Leah, who can't get enough, went to Barnaby to get her fix."

Barnaby immediately gave the guy a thumbs-up.

And my heart, in that moment, held more than rage. There was a bottomless bleakness in it too.

How fitting.

After my mother was gone, I'd worried I was neglecting Leah.

So the moment the funeral was over, I hurried straight here to find her.

I never imagined she'd never held me in her heart at all. My mother had died because of them, and now they were pouring salt into the wound.

"Damn! This Cedric guy is a real tragedy."

"If he ever finds out Barnaby's prank killed his mother, and that Leah slept with Barnaby and cheated on him, you think he'd sue you?"

Barnaby only smirked. "Does he have proof?"

"Without proof, what can he do to me?"

Barnaby's voice carried through the door, loud and full of itself, and something in me gave way. I kicked the door open and stormed in.

The moment they saw me, every grin froze.

The whole room went silent. The air turned heavy, suffocating.

Only Barnaby seemed unbothered by my rage. He leaned back toward Leah with a smirk, daring me to do something.

Leah's hand paused around her glass. She glanced back at him, then turned to face me.

Her tone was calm, unhurried, as if none of this had anything to do with her.

"So you've finished with your mother's arrangements?"

I didn't answer. I just glared at them, shaking with fury.

Leah sighed. The others exchanged looks.

All of them trying to figure out whether I'd overheard their little secret.

"Cedric, did you hear what we were talking about just now?"

"I did."

"So my mother didn't fall down the stairs by accident. She died because Barnaby scared her to death with his"

I didn't get to finish. Barnaby shot up and jabbed a finger at me, cursing.

"Hold on. What do you mean I scared your old lady to death?"

"She's the one whose head didn't work right. Couldn't even tell a joke from the truth."

"Like you've never played a joke on anyone. Look, she fell and died, that's on her. Don't go pinning it on me."

"Who plays a joke about someone's life on their wedding day just to scare them? Who sent me off so my mother couldn't find me, then took my phone so no call could get through?"

"My mother had a heart condition. She couldn't take a scare like that!"

Nobody dared say a word against my rage.

Only Barnaby had the nerve to stand up and hurl a glass off the coffee table at me. I dodged and lunged at him as fast as I could.

We grappled, and it was obvious he was no match for me. He was losing.

But he had his friends. They pulled me off under the pretense of breaking up the fight, when really they had me pinned so I couldn't move, giving Barnaby his chance to hit back.

Leah, blind to all of it, rounded on me and shouted.

"Enough!"

"How long are you going to keep making a scene?"

Was I the one making a scene? I was demanding justice for my own mother. And she, my fiancee, not only refused to stand by me, she took Barnaby's side.

Right. I'd nearly forgotten how she'd cheated on me.

While I was busy burying my mother, she was in bed with Barnaby.

No wonder she was covering for him.

"Leah, after everything, you won't even apologize to me. Instead you help him dodge what he did."

I shook off the hands holding me and swept my eyes across every ugly face in the room.

Maybe something in my grief got to Leah, because she told Barnaby to apologize to me.

He couldn't very well defy her, so he shot me a grudging, sullen look.

"Hey. Sorry, all right?"

"There. I apologized. Do me a favor and show me some respect from now on."

Only then did Leah smile again as she looked at him. "And you're not to go around pulling stunts like that anymore."

Then she turned to me.

"Barnaby's still young, a little too proud for his own good. Just let it go."

"Besides, he's already apologized to you!"

Every word dripped with her favoritism, each one a soft blade wrapped in silk.

Turning deliberate cruelty into the excuse of youth, and asking the victim to just accept it.

My nails dug into my flesh. It should have hurt, but I felt nothing at all.

"That so-called apology was nothing but contempt. I won't accept it."

"If killing someone can be settled with a simple apology, then I wouldn't mind ending his line for good."

I dropped the words and straightened my collar.

"If he doesn't realize what he's done, I don't mind handling it my own way."

At the doorway, I stopped.

"There's no need to hold any wedding between us. It's over here."

I pulled the door open and walked out. Behind me, Leah's furious scream came after me.

"Leah, it really looks like Cedric is furious this time."

"Are you saying the wedding is off?"

Leah arched a brow, her voice carrying a certain confidence.

"He only dares to raise his voice at me because he's angry right now. Once he cools off, he'll regret it."

"Call off the engagement? That will never happen."

"A man who loves me that recklessly doesn't just let go on a whim."

Then she turned and warned Barnaby.

"Don't go running your mouth with jokes like that again. Do you hear me?"

Seeing that Leah was a little angry, Barnaby could only nod obediently and agree.

Outside the door, I hadn't gone far at all, and I heard every word between them clearly.

It was ironic, really. Barnaby had once been in a car crash, trapped inside, unable to get out.

I was the one who risked my life to pull him free.

But I never imagined his heart was no different from an animal's. He could use his rescuer's mother for a cruel prank, could sleep with his rescuer's fiance. How rotten did a person have to be to do something like that?

If I hadn't saved him back then, none of this would have happened. But life doesn't run on "if." It only runs on what people choose to do.

So after I left the bar, I went straight to pull the security footage.

I never expected the footage from that day to be gone. Leah had already destroyed it.

No wonder Barnaby had been so brazen.

I walked through the streets. By now it was deep into the night.

A bitter, sour ache lingered in my chest and wouldn't leave.

And it was right then that I got a call from Leah's mother.

"I hear you were the one who brought up calling off the engagement with Leah tonight, is that right?"

The Hardings had always looked down on me. Even after I worked tirelessly to help Leah push the Hardings from a second-rate outfit into one of the top technology firms in Seattle.

They still thought I wasn't good enough. In their eyes, Leah could marry someone far higher up.

My long silence clearly displeased Mrs. Harding.

"Have you lost your tongue?"

"Mrs. Harding, show some respect."

"I'm calling off the engagement with her. Isn't that exactly what you wanted?"

"Hmph! Since you're the one who brought it up, there's no taking it back."

"Don't go bothering her after this. She deserves a wealthier man."

There was nothing pleasant about a conversation like that, and in the end we both chose to end the call quickly.

By the time I got home, it was the middle of the night.

I never expected to find Leah in my house.

The moment she saw me, she stood up.

"Where did you go? Why are you back so late?"

"I've already reprimanded Barnaby for you. It was an honest mistake on his part."

"To make up for my part in it, and considering everything you've done for the company,"

"I've decided to announce something the moment it's morning. I'm promoting you to Vice President."

I kept my eyes on her, neither warm nor angry, while she had no idea I'd already settled the broken engagement with her mother.

"Leah, just go."

"I need some peace."

My sudden coldness left her stunned for a moment.

I have a thing about cleanliness, and I couldn't accept her cheating on me. Even less could I accept that she'd helped Barnaby drive my mother, on and off, to her death.

"I didn't come only to see you. I came to light a candle for your mother."

Her eyes reddened as she walked to my mother's memorial, took the incense from the stand, lit three sticks, and knelt to bow before her.

"I'm sorry. Because of our careless mistake, you died."

"But I truly didn't mean it."

Her voice broke into sobs, and I found I had no way to harden my face and drive her out.

Before she left, she told me, firmly.

That night she'd drunk too much out of guilt, and that was why she'd mistaken Barnaby for me.

The next day, the company called me back for a meeting.

Leah texted me over and over, telling me to wear a proper suit.

When I got back, my coworkers took one look at me and started whispering.

"Director Gilbert's back!"

"I heard today's the day he gets promoted to VP. That's why they told him he had to come in."

"Director Gilbert's got the chops. That seat's his by right, nobody's arguing with that"

"But do you know why Ms. Harding suddenly wants to promote him?"

"I do. Because Ms. Harding and Supervisor Delgado played that prank on his mother at the wedding and scared her to death. And then, the crazier part, Ms. Harding slept with Supervisor Delgado too. Cheated on Director Gilbert."

The moment the words were out, every head turned to stare at me, the looks either pity or mockery.

Feeling sorry for me, and laughing at me at the same time, that I'd swallow a grudge like that for money.

Nobody knew what was going through my head as I walked in, carrying a humiliation I'd never felt before.

I reached my office, pulled the door open, and went straight in.

I started gathering up the things that belonged to me. I was halfway through when someone came in to tell me to head over for the meeting.

Every employee, every shareholder, they'd all been there for a while. I was the only one missing.

Leah looked at me, then parted her lips to speak.

"Everyone, the reason I called you all here today is that I have something big to announce."

"The position of VP has been vacant for a long time. It's time we found someone with the ability, the record, and the shoulders to carry it."

The words had barely landed before everyone turned, all at once, to look at me. In their minds, I was the only one with what it took to sit in that chair.

Leah smiled. "I have someone excellent in mind. That person is!"

She looked right at me, her eyes urging me, firm, to stand.

I hesitated, then made up my mind and got to my feet. And in the next second

"That person is Barnaby Delgado!!!"

"Let's give him a round of applause!"

The moment she said it, the whole room burst out laughing at me.

"So it wasn't Cedric after all. Then what was he standing up so sure of himself for?"

"Hahaha, I'm dying here."

I'd fought and bled for this company all that time, only to end up sewing the wedding dress for Barnaby.

And she'd made a spectacle of me in front of everyone, until I wanted the floor to swallow me whole.

Barnaby stood up. As he passed me, he deliberately ground his foot down onto my dress shoe.

He spoke in a voice only the two of us could hear.

"You idiot. Your mother getting played by me wasn't enough, you got played too."

"Leah lost at cards. She had no choice but to help me prank you."

Watching him walk away, my heart burned with rage.

I turned and left without a word.

Leah kept talking to Barnaby, but she watched my retreating back, uneasy, the fear still in her.

She wanted to come after me, but Barnaby stopped her on purpose.

I'd known all along that the VP promotion wasn't as simple as it looked.

I set my resignation letter on the desk, then picked up my phone and made a few calls.

I told them I'd left the Hardings, and that from now on everything to do with the Hardings had nothing to do with me.

Then I blocked and deleted every way Leah had to reach me.

I picked up my things and walked out of the Hardings without looking back.